Campaign Action
As Mark Sumner noted last month, “in both Texas and Louisiana, the victims of flooding from record rains churned up in the wake of Hurricane Harvey are more likely to be poor, and more likely to be black or Latino.” And, undocumented. The Houston Chronicle reports that in one complex where some residents lack legal status, tenants have seen their units flood with water, debris, and toxic mold. For those without legal status, they are further devastated because they are ineligible for assistance from FEMA:
Nine days after those six inches of floodwater came and went, José Zamora and his wife had resumed life in their first-floor apartment, where they cared for several of their neighbors' small children.
One napped last Tuesday afternoon in a hammock strung across the living room, as others toddled between pieces of flood-soaked furniture.
Zamora, 65, was in communication with the management office about repairs, and had been told to sit tight.
"They've told us they're waiting for FEMA to arrive first ... to assess the damage in each apartment," he said in Spanish.
"We hardly received any damage," Zamora added. "We feel good here."
City inspectors arrived last Friday to find repairs still had not begun, even though management was collecting September rent.
"They did not take action to return rent checks until a day after I demanded they do so," Houston Housing Director Tom McCasland said.
By Saturday morning, rumors about pending evictions began circulating among residents.
Laura Romero lives on the second floor, but said management told her first-floor neighbors they had to be out by Monday, per city orders.
Meanwhile, others had been told they didn’t have to leave just yet, with the conflicting reports only adding to the chaos. "They're worried because the man told them they had to leave by today," Romero said in Spanish. "They don't have anywhere to go."
As Harvey struck, city officials tried to reassure Houston’s undocumented immigrants that they would not be asked about their legal status at shelters, but the trust is broken due to the ramping up of Donald Trump’s deportation force. Many instead opted to wait out the storm at home. “This is where we are right now, at the mercy of the elements,” said one undocumented Texan forced into a shelter with his family. “We were already so scared. It would be a disgrace if [immigration agents] come after us now.”
And as Sumner noted, “it’s not that people with more wealth aren’t suffering or in danger. Of course they are. But they’re more likely to have the personal resources and the local, state, and federal programs that put them back into their homes.” Poorer folks, particularly undocumented immigrant Texans, are left to suffer doubly as they face eviction from their homes with nowhere to go, or are left to live in a toxic environment and shut out of federal disaster assistance despite their humanity and the fact that they pay taxes.
"Most people are scared. People are scared to talk, and they think the people of the city work for Immigration," one tenant, a U.S. citizen, told the Chronicle. "That's why they don't report anything."